Women’s basketball: Bonnies look for consistency against Canisius

After a 1-1 season-opening weekend, the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team heads into tonight’s matchup against Big 4 rival Canisius looking for constistency.

The Bonnies are coming off a 70-57 victory against Colgate on Sunday which gave head coach Jesse Fleming his first win at the helm of his alma mater.

“The energy was fantastic in the first half,” Fleming said on Sunday following the victory. “The ball was really popping… We kind of accomplished our goal of getting better from Friday night.”

And “get better,” the Bonnies did, quickly rebounding from a 65-43 loss to Niagara two days earlier lead chiefly by junior Matea Britvar who turned in 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 field goals made.

Britvar may be the secret ingredient for St. Bonaventure to get on a hot streak during non-conference play. It became increasingly evident following Friday evening’s loss to Niagara that junior Mariah Ruff cannot do it all and contributions from Britvar as well as sophomore Mckenna Maycock, who grabbed a career high eight boards on Sunday, will need to be key for St. Bonaventure in order to gain the consistency that a young team needs.

St. Bonaventure will also look to limit turnovers, after committing 26 of them so far this season.

The Bonnies, playing once again at home, hope energy will not be a problem, as they look to defend their 17-game win streak at the Reilly Center. Waiting for them this evening will be an old rival in the Griffins, who are playing under the leadership of Bona alum Terry Zeh.

Zeh, now in his 12th season as head coach of the Golden Griffins, leads a Canisius team that received a preseason ranking of six out of 11 teams in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Leading that team this season has been All-MAAC Preseason Third Team sophomore Maria Welch, who, along with junior Margaret Halfdanardottir, led the Golden Griffins offensively with 14 points in a 83-59 loss against Northeastern in the team’s season opener on Sunday.

As far as history goes, this evening will mark the 52nd meeting between the programs. Most recently, the Bonnies have a ten-game winning streak and won last season’s matchup by a score of 59-47.

All storylines aside, the Bonnies have shown a little bit of everything in their first two games: their absolute best in their victory against Colgate and, potentially, their absolute worst in their loss to Niagara. Tonight’s game against a historic rival gives them the opportunity to establish an early-season identity and put them on a consistent road for the rest of the season.